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Something else----at least wishy washy option 3. Unless this is just an exercise, it is a deficit reduction path and it would seem important now to see which Senate/Congress members would "walk the walk."

An indicator could be in how expensively the congress/senate members have been able to run their own offices.

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If anything needs "regulation" it is the cost of a Congressman and his staff. A committee of each house must be obligated to determine - annually - the wealth of each Senator or Representative.

An increase in compensation must be limited to the COLA for everyone until they leave office. The health care system for Congressmen is another atrocity we taxpayers fund so a Congressman can get the very best - and most expensive - care.

Lobbyists should be strictly limited in their access, and their payments, to Congressmen ostensibly to leave time to address the concerns of non-lobbyist, ordinary constituents.

Congressional pensions should be limited to the years of time 'served' - and should require personal payment of premiums.

Thus, a 2 term Representative might qualify for a pension equivalent to the payments to Social Security recipients for 2 YEARS.

And, with a term limit of one term, Reps would get retirement benefits for two years only.

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Wow when did spending jump to 21% it was 18%. Well, I was very disappointed with the results. I saw more hidden spending to certain select groups not cutting. The cuts to military health was appauling- the last I looked we are still bringing home troops with missing body parts from wars in far off lands. That may bother the news ladies at CNN that we have to spend so much money on the troops healthcare but I did realize others were in the same mindset.

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There is NO other group of Americans more deserving of support than the combat military.

Among those, if a man has actually been in combat, wounded or not, he should be exempt from Federal, State and Local taxes for the rest of his noble life! Additionally, he personally should never have to spend a dime on his health care.

He offered his life, the least we can do is make the rest of his life as comfortable as possible.

Take the necessary fuinding from the ever-increasing entitlements that are given to the non-productive simply because they exist!!

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Lets not create yet another special class of citizen. Far more rational than establishing a privilege for some status (obtained either legitimately or ceremonially) it would make more sense that only those who pay taxes can vote and their vote should be proportional to the logarithm (or some such) of the relative magnitude of taxes paid. Lets say you pay 1,000 in taxes then you might get 4 votes for example (1 + Log base10 of 1000 rounded to the nearest order of magnitude) 10,000 and you get 5. That way those who pay the piper call the tune (or decide how much taxes should be collected and spent). It is irrational that half the people in the US pay no or negative income taxes yet have equal say in spending. Why not vote for 100 trillion in entitlements if you are not going to contribute?

It is the separation of authority from responsibility; the isolation of consumption from payment that leads to distortions. IMO the reason health care costs so much is it is largely a third party pay system rather than insurance being used as a safety net for catastrophic events.

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I am pretty sure we agree on the case for special entitlements for citizens in general and while I agree the Constitution makes no provision for votes=paying taxes (as it should not) it also makes no provision for special interest positive "rights"

As for the military, I disagree. Service can be a personal responsibility at times of crisis (although not an obligation IMO as no one should be able to demand such) and one should not expect special treatment for service. A second reason I do not agree is that politicians can and have provided themselves with convenient military service and I have no doubt this would effectively become a special gift to the politically-connected, independent of actual service in war.

By the way, check out Lyndon Johnson's silver star for riding as an observer on an aircraft that may or may not have actually seen combat and on an aircraft where none of the active service people were so awarded.